films get longer ... and STILL have songs

apanaa Bollywood filmmakers will never learn. Long films, especially those with flagging narrative and dumbass songs touting pathetically synthetic family values[sic] and the virtues of true love (with dancers dressed in their skimpiest best. how ironic!) suck. And J P Dutta, for all the promise of a great visual scape seen in Ghulami and Batwara, seems to want to lead this effort. LoC Kargil features 26 Bollywood heroes and 11 heroines, and runs for four hours. With all these people, this Altman wannabe effort will clearly have songs. Despite all that praise (what in the name of grief were people thinking?), Border was a vain attempt at trying to shove in a square peg into a round hole -- getting stars to act (I mean COME ON!), lugging in Anu Malik's "new wave" of "good" [sic] music (which kept looping Javed Akhtar's lyrics close to an end but never got there -- something the Rolling Stones should have patented), featuring tired dialogue, overlong jingoistic moments and a Filmfare award-winning background score by Aadesh Srivastava, which stuck out like Godzilla's sore thumb and really got on my nerves. Should I expect anything different from this? I don't think Bollywood has enough "acting" talent to fill an Altmanesque multistarrer (although star appeal might arguably take precedence over acting in such ventures), and I would really welcome an effort that attempts to put acting first instead of hurling reeking star suckfests at us. But then the mainstream isn't complaining. And is willing to dish out hard-earned rupaiya and $$$ to watch cuties (M and F) indulge in flights of moronic fantasy. Time to break the ribbon and peg myself to a stupor.